Originally Posted by
RChung
For the purposes of hill climbing, weight matters but tire rolling resistance matters a lot, too. Good tires/tubes and proper inflation can be worth a fair bit of weight, and is often cheaper.
Mass and rolling resistance drag by slope.
I would think that anyone with 17 lb bike would have low rolling resistance tires on them already.
Otherwise, I completely agree with you. Anything to reduce the effort on climbs can help significantly, even better aero (in case of headwinds)
It can only take a few watts difference at the lactate threshold to mean the difference between bonking or sustaining power without great difficulty. Of course, you can also get a few more watts with training or simply improved technique or even fit. But I doubt you'll get a big difference in feel between different performance-oriented tires unless you're changing from a touring or gravel tire into low resistance road or race tires.